


What the Cat Dragged Home

by Raven_Ehtar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Confused Tony Stark, Drunk Loki (Marvel), FrostIron - Freeform, Helpful Tony Stark, M/M, Maudlin Loki, Possibly Attempting a Seduction, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Sexual Tension, they're both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 02:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12423714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Ehtar/pseuds/Raven_Ehtar
Summary: Seems Loki is in town again, and Tony Stark heads off to take care of him before he can start trouble... only to find that Loki is in no condition to get up to any mischief making. How does one deal with a drunken Asgardian villain?





	What the Cat Dragged Home

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from tumblr, the original prompt was simply "You're drunk. Come on, let me take you home." I may have misconstrued the intended direction that phrase was meant to go.

When JARVIS had popped up with an alert from a long-standing program put in place after the Tesseract and Chitauri incident had begun, Tony had been surprised to see that the ping came from a bar. Surprised, but not slow to respond. He stared long enough to be sure he had the location down right, that the signature he was getting was actually who he thought it was, and dropped everything else to speed into one of his suits. 

As he flew to the location he’d checked news feeds on the HUD for how bad the damage was, what sort of shit storm he was flying into. There’d been nothing. A quick check with JARVIS had shown no signs of a S.H.I.E.L.D. media blackout being put in place, and the peacefulness of the area was confirmed by a few third party observation devices. He was still skeptical, but the place certainly didn’t seem to be on fire when he touched down outside their front doors. 

“J, are we confirmed on the Loki ping? It looks awful calm for the God of Mischief and Chaos to be in the neighborhood.”

“Sir, I’ve done several rechecks since the initial alert. I am satisfied it is genuine and that Loki Laufeyson remains within the establishment.”

Tony smirked at his AI’s tone. JARVIS had done a lot of growing since his initial programming, developing quite a snarky attitude at times. That was probably due to interacting with Tony so much, honestly. Sometimes it was hard to remember the voice was lines of code, and not a man sequestered somewhere with a headset. 

Flesh or not, Tony trusted JARVIS’ judgement, trusted him to know what he was talking about. Which only confused him more, the evidence of his eyes not matching what he was being told. 

Ignoring the odd looks he got from civilians, he walked into the lounge in full battle gear. One or two couples made quick exits on seeing him, which he could only view as a positive. At least no one was rushing _towards_ him, wanting to get close to the Iron Man. It was a decided downside to his hero persona being a celebrity. People who ought to take his appearance on the scene as a sign of danger instead saw it as a rare photo opportunity. 

The inside was as quiet as the outside, this being one of the higher end establishments with modern décor and muted lighting, with no signs of carnage. No broken furniture, no overblown speeches or flying magic, no cowering people. If anything, Tony was the only one having any sort of noticeable effect on the patrons, another group or two beating a hasty retreat at the sight of the familiar armor.

He was about to ask JARVIS again if he was certain of Loki’s being there – at the risk of an acerbic if mechanical reply – when he finally spotted the Asgardian. 

Once he found him, Tony didn’t feel nearly as bad about not having done so immediately. He’d seen Loki sans armor and horned helm, but he hadn’t been expecting anything else. He certainly hadn’t been expecting Loki in a suit, the jacket draped over the back of his stool, curled around his drink like an everyday barfly. 

He hesitated, mind immediately sorting through all the ways this could be a trap, eyes flicking to the HUD readouts which could sometimes discern if he was looking at the real Loki or an illusory clone. Everything came back saying what he thought he saw was real, though. There was also something in the way Loki sat that spoke to Tony’s deeper instincts, telling him that the man he was seeing was in no condition to initiate any dastardly plots.

Frowning, Tony opened up the faceplate of his helmet to get a view of Loki without the HUD in his way. He still looked like Loki. Long limbs, long hair, incongruous Midgardian clothes, but still his sharp profile and lean hands wrapped around a glass of something that looked expensive. 

The hell, had he somehow caught Loki on his day off? For that matter, did Loki even take time for himself when he wasn’t being a pain in the ass? What would a so-called God of Mischief consider a good time that didn’t get him spotted on the Avenger radar?

Mind swirling with increasingly outlandish speculations on what Loki would consider a good time – surfing? heavy metal concerts? intergalactic solar sailing? – he beckoned the nervous looking barman over. “Hey, Malone. A minute?” He jerked his chin towards the sitting man as the barman came near. “That guy,” he said, not using the name that had become so familiar on Earth. “You remember when he got in?”

The barman frowned, narrow face scrunching in on itself in the effort of concentration and abrupt suspicion. “That gentleman, sir? I’m afraid not, I didn’t see. But he’s been at that seat for the last two hours.”

Tony gave it even odds that Loki had teleported straight to that seat, rather than walk in the front door. Which would make sense if this were a high security facility with some shiny doo-dad the Asgardian wanted, but here? All there was to be had was moderately expensive furniture and dimmer switches. And alcohol, which going by sight was what Loki was looking for. 

“Sir?” Tony started, looking at the barman again. He was eyeing Loki with a mix of suspicion and fear. 

_Probably something Lokes gets a lot,_ Tony thought, then shook his head. “What’s up?”

“Should I be evacuating the premises, or calling the authorities?”

Tony gave it some quick thought, and then shook his head. There was no reason to trust that Loki’s current lax state would last, but Tony had learned to trust his instincts of late, and they were telling him there was no immediate threat. Still, a little prudence wouldn’t go amiss. “No, I think we’re alright for now. Just keep a weather eye out for any change, alright?”

The barman nodded and backed off, but Tony could still feel him watching as Tony made his way to one of the empty stools beside Loki. It was possibly some kind of magical influence which kept those seats empty, but if it was, it had no effect on Tony when he approached. Maybe after fighting him so often he’d developed some kind of immunity?

He slipped into the one next to Loki, long practice with his armor making the move much smoother than it used to be. He praised whoever had constructed the seating – it held up under him. 

Loki didn’t react, didn’t even seem to notice, which Tony found more than a little odd. It was rather hard to miss a walking red and gold tank coming up right beside one, and for another thing this was _Loki._ The bastard was notoriously hard to sneak up on. A close look at Loki’s face almost made the odd behavior make sense. His eyes were open, the green gaze aimed down at the drink clasped loosely in long fingers, but Tony could tell that he wasn’t actually seeing anything that was in front of him. Tony had been on the other side of that particular look enough times to recognize it. It was still possible that it was just a front – a farce meant to take people like Tony off their guard, so he didn’t allow himself to completely relax. Loki might look loose as a cut string, but Tony could still recall the feel of those long fingers on his throat all too clearly. 

Still, if Loki was as loose as he looked, what the hell would bring him to this point?

He leaned armored arms onto the bar top casually, the closeness of the stools meaning that he was very much in Loki’s personal space. Like his approach and taking a seat beside him, the banished Prince did not deign to notice. If this was some sort of trick, he was playing it out nice and long. Tony cleared his throat; still no response.

Okay, now he was just getting annoyed.

“So,” he drawled, going for one of the most clichéd lines he could think of, “what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

It got a slow blink, at least, the first sign that Loki was aware he was there at all, though it might have just been a blink. It also looked like it would be the only response he would get. He was about to go on a ramble, to fill up the silence that Loki seemed determined to keep because, seriously? He hated being ignored. He was about to, but Loki beat him to it by finally deciding to acknowledge Tony’s existence.

“A good question.” The answer was quiet, a low rumble which made Tony tense before he realized it wasn’t a growl, really, just Loki’s voice gone rough. How many drinks had he downed before JARVIS picked him up? “A question I have asked myself, over and over, and yet to find a satisfactory answer.”

 _More than a few, probably tall ones,_ Tony decided in answer to his own question. There had to be more than a few drinks inside him if he was feeling as dismal as he sounded. Especially if he felt like he could state any of it aloud. “That right?” He watched as Loki took a long sip of his drink. At least his hands were steady. “What about the unsatisfactory answers, then? Any luck there?”

“Oh.” Loki waved a hand through the air. Tony flinched, but no magic flew from fingertips. When his arm lowered again, it hit the counter a little too heavily. Not a puppet with its strings cut, but they were certainly stretched out. “Take your pick, there are so many to choose from. I am here at all due to fate spun by the Norns, an old man’s pity, or more likely a scheming one’s attempt at a coup. I am in my current tangle, so far from where I had begun, through a long chain reaction of measure and counter measure, intent lost in consequence, design and purpose fractured apart into meaningless shards. I am in this Realm because it offers the most attractive ratio of distraction versus those who wish me dead. And I am here,” he said, tilting his drink into what might have been a mock toast to his surroundings, “to get drunk.” He tossed back the last of the sticky blue stuff in his glass and brought it back down with a sharp clack.

“Well, you seem to be managing that last one well enough,” Tony commented drily, earning a very tired sounding chuckle. 

It wasn’t really an exaggeration, though. Loki was putting sentences together as prettily as he ever did, but to Tony’s practiced ear the words weren’t as clear as they ought to be. They were soft around the edges, threatening to blur into each other. What Loki was choosing to speak about and its rather… poetic quality was another sign of just how far under the table he really was. There was a lot of bitterness laced in with those words, almost hidden beneath a thick layer of weary resignation, but still so intense Tony could almost taste it on his lips. 

“I’m a little surprised,” he said, relaxing a bit more but still wary. “Surprised and insulted, I think. Going by how much other Asgardians have to drink in order to get even tipsy, I wouldn’t have thought this place _had_ enough alcohol to even give you a decent buzz.”

Loki snorted. “This is not the first, or even one of the first few establish… ments I have paid call to.”

“Ah.” Good to know Loki’s alcohol tolerance was at least as high as Thor’s. Also that he had probably drunk several bars dry before his systems had picked him up. It suggested either his drunkenness had made him sloppy, or that he had decided to make himself visible after having become so for some reason. What that reason might be he could only guess, but he found it more likely than him becoming careless, drunk or not. 

“… and the insult?”

“Hm? Oh. That you would choose to spend your time in bars – or _lounges,_ like this place – when you have an invitation to my personal bar. I can assure you I only have the highest quality stock, and I doubt you’ll find a more charming barkeep.”

Loki looked up and over at him for the first time, which meant he was in time to catch Tony’s most charming smile full on. It also meant Tony got a really good look at him for the first time. His hair was immaculate as always, with the long tips attempting to curl upwards. The green eyes were a little heavy lidded, perhaps, the green gone deep and shaded. 

Bedroom eyes, Tony found, were very distracting when combined with a flush. The fact that Loki was in his shirtsleeves, leaving his trim shape much more visible only made it worse. 

“You would welcome an enemy into your home, Stark, and offer him drinks? That seems unusually congenial, given our relative positions.”

Ye gods, his mind was already wandering into odd and dangerous territory without words like ‘positions’ coming out of Loki’s mouth, whatever the context. Blinking away the rather intrusive imagery his mind was inventing for him, he tried to focus. 

He shrugged, the motion reminding him that save the faceplate, he was still fully suited up. “I’m a congenial kind of guy, and I figure if you’ve got any _serious_ plans to make my day miserable then it could be done any time. You don’t need an invitation to get inside my defenses if you really wanted. Waiting until you have one would probably feel a bit like admitting to a weakness.” He tilted his head at Loki, one side of his mouth curling up. “No need to let our day jobs take away from a little after hours relaxation.”

Loki’s frown only deepened, and he cocked his head in an unconscious mimic of Tony. He could see the Trickster’s mind working, picking apart the meanings of what he said, the hidden meanings and working out what it was Tony was _really_ saying. Loki was a master of words, Tony had no doubts that he would work it out easily enough – Tony hadn’t been particularly sneaky in his phrasing. So when the frown deepened more, green eyes sharpening, he knew the meaning had been parsed, and now he was attempting to interpret it. 

_‘Your attacks are never serious,’_ he was saying. _‘Your schemes are just annoyances, and I know it’s on purpose. I trust you… enough for a drink, at least.’_

What would Loki make of that? Given his current state, Tony wasn’t willing to hazard much of a guess. Even sober the man’s mind made leaps he struggled to keep up with at times. Inebriated and uninhibited, who knew where his mind might end up. He might even choose to ignore the unspoken message entirely. Without anything stated directly, that was still an easy path to take. 

“You are a complicated man, Anthony Stark,” he said at last, his eyes still scanning over Tony’s face, searching for something. “Not nearly so straightforward as you would have the majority of people believe you to be.”

Tony smirked. “Yeah, well. Takes one to know one, Lokes.”

The Trickster’s mouth turned down at that, but there was an understanding flash in his eye, so it looked more like a smile. 

“So, why here of all places? We’ve established that you didn’t consider my place because you weren’t sure whether or not it would mean leaving behind another crater, but what’s so special about this place? Other than the fact that it’s only a five minute flight from my front door and so gains some charm by association.”

Loki snorted and turned his gaze back down to his drink. Tony relaxed a little. Even bleary with drink, Loki’s gaze was cutting, as though he wasn’t looking at him so much as _into_ him. It was an uncomfortable feeling, made only more so by the fact that Tony was 90% certain Loki _could_ see into his head if he really wanted to.

“Does it need to be ‘special,’ Stark? Is it not enough that there are drinks and that with a little effort…” Loki leaned back slightly to motion at himself and his Midgardian clothing – and misjudged his balance, the stool tipping backwards. 

Tony was moving to catch him before his brain had time to really consider it. He caught him in good time, one gauntleted hand between his shoulder blades enough to keep the inebriated Asgardian from becoming too closely acquainted with the tile floor. He was heavier than he looked, especially in his current condition, but the suit made it easy to hold him. 

“Steady there, Longshanks. You might feel like you’re floating, but gravity still works.”

Loki looked at him, and Tony went very still. He’d been pinned by Loki’s glare often enough, once when it had been a mad, electric blue which promised death, more often a toxic green which promised mischief, mystery or more than a few bruises. Being the focus of Loki’s attention was never something that was easy to shake off later, the awareness of it staying with him for hours, sometimes days afterwards. Like a weight across his shoulders, the phantom sensation stuck around, making it seem as though the Asgardian were still around, still watching him. 

This look promised nothing. It promised nothing and it projected nothing. There was no malice and no mockery, only two eyes so deeply green they bordered on black, seeming to ask a question rather than seek to threaten. It was as open an expression Tony had ever seen on the Trickster.

And close. Loki was very close and it was probably time to push him back into place on his damned stool, but Tony’s body was refusing to move. And Loki didn’t seem in any sort of hurry to shift, either.

“Floating… yes. I believe I am floating, Stark. That would appear to by my entire problem.”

Loki blinked, and Tony took a breath, bands around his chest he hadn’t even been aware of loosening. Those dangerous eyes had fallen away from his, settling instead on his own hand and where it lay on Tony’s arm. He still didn’t seem all that interested in moving, but Tony was alright with that so long as Loki was no longer looking at him like that. 

Then he began to run his hand idly up and down the metal of his forearm and Tony suddenly felt the need to reevaluate his stance on green eyed stares. He was still in his suit but he could swear he felt that touch. 

“There is nothing _special_ in the place I have chosen.” Loki’s voice had gone low and quiet. Tony almost leaned in to hear, but restrained himself. “So far as such places go, one is much as any other. Across realms and peoples, a house of drink is a house of drink. If anything, I chose to imbibe here,” he looked up at Tony again, making him curse mentally, “because I did not wish to be alone.”

Tony’s brain short circuited. There were far too many ways to interpret that phrase, and all of the ones he was coming up with were incredibly vivid, but no doubt completely off base. It was a little hard to come up with anything else, though, when he was practically holding Loki in his arms. A very pliant, flushed Loki whose pupils had blown wide…

Loki wasn’t careless, Tony reminded himself. He wasn’t one who made simple mistakes, such as walking around brazenly in a public place – in a city which wasn’t likely to forget him any time soon. If Loki ever made such a move, it was no doubt calculated, even drunk. 

Tony’s place was only a five minute flight away. 

_“I did not wish to be alone.”_

Fucking hell.

Shoving aside all the assorted images his overactive imagination was providing him with – thank you so much, brain – Tony hoisted the Asgardian back up into his seat. Loki looked a little surprised, but he didn’t protest. “So you came to slum it in a Midgardian bar, to hang out with the people you’d intended to subjugate, eh? Maybe pick up a pretty face to take home with you? What, is your fortress of solitude getting a little too cold for your liking?”

Loki scoffed, although in his state it came out more as a snort. “As though something made of ice would ever notice such things…” He tossed back the last of his drink – wait, when had it been refilled? – his throat working as he swallowed, sharp teeth bared as he grimaced at the burn. Tony most emphatically did _not_ notice. “Nor one cast out of metal, I should think…”

If he had intended to say more, it was lost as his balance abandoned him again, this time pitching him forward to the counter. He managed to catch himself before he sprawled over the surface entirely, but it was a near thing. 

“Alright, this is too pathetic, even for a ‘sworn enemy’ or whatever.” Tony stood up and started to lever the Asgardian up. “You’re drunk as a lord. I’m tempted to go so far as to say ‘plastered.’ C’mon, let me take you home.”

Loki laughed as Tony hauled him up first to a sitting position and then – swaying – to his feet; all with very little help from Loki himself, the prick. “Have you not been… listening at all, Stark? I have no home. There is no place for me to return to.” He laughed again, and there was an edge to it Tony didn’t like. What were the chances he would go off on a melancholy fueled magical rampage? What were the chances he _could_ when he was three sheets to the wind? He’d rather not find out. 

“ _My_ home, then,” he said without thinking. 

He’d arranged the long, compliant limbs of the other man into something it would at least be possible to maneuver around. He felt those limbs abruptly go stiff. “Really, Stark? You, a trusted member of S.H.I.E.L.D., the vaunted Iron Avenger taking a wanted criminal into your own home so late at night. Whatever would Father Fury say?”

“He can say whatever he damn well wants to,” Tony snapped, Loki’s words getting to him more than he wanted to admit. “Besides, I’m not actually a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m a consultant.” Old resentment, never fully forgotten, twisted the words, making them come out hard and edged, weapons to use against others so they wouldn’t hurt him anymore. 

“Ah, I see…” Loki’s breath, oddly cool, brushed across his jaw and neck, fluttering just past his ear, making him shiver. No doubt Loki felt it, draped over Tony’s shoulder as he was. “It’s as I thought, then. You are just as alone as I.”

Tony tried not to think too much about that, reminding himself that Loki was drunk, and proceeded to steer the both of them out of the establishment once he gathered up Loki’s jacket. He made sure to tip the watchful barman well as they went by.

* * *

By the time Tony made it back home with his guest – more like wet sack of flour, _damn_ he was heavy – Loki was mostly insensate. Tony counted it as a blessing, as his ramblings were making less and less sense as they went on, going into some complex, looping exposition about fate and predestination. It was interesting on occasion, but mostly it sine waved between the incomprehensible and the pedantic, with a little dose of the surreal thrown in as Loki kept using the word ‘weird’ for some reason, which was not a word he was prepared to hear in that damned accent. When the running commentary slowed from a flood to a dribble Tony could only be relieved. It had nothing whatsoever to do with how Loki’s breath kept tickling over his skin. 

He dumped the Asgardian onto his couch with perhaps a little less care than he could have taken. Tony was tired, though, and annoyed with the whole situation – how he felt tricked by his own humanitarian instincts into taking pity on Loki, how Loki was doing absolutely nothing to prove those instincts wrongheaded, how his own thoughts kept wandering into unsafe territory whenever he thought too closely on the physicality of the man he held, how he couldn’t pin down exactly why he was doing this… Loki was a _villain_ , for god’s sake, why was he letting the lush crash with him? By all rights he ought to be dragging the bastard off to a cell somewhere, shipping him off to S.H.I.E.L.D. Or possibly he should be calling Thor to fetch his brother. How much trouble had Loki caused this last year or so? They’d never managed to lay hands on him before, and now here he was, practically gift wrapped for them and in no condition to protest being captured. Tony really ought to be taking advantage of the chance he was presented with…

Loki’s eyes slitted open, glittering in the dark. A soft, tired smile pulled at his lips. “Thank you… Anthony…” The soft exhalation seemed to sap whatever strength he had left and Loki’s head fell back to the plush arm rest, his limbs left in a chaotic sprawl. 

Tony stared down at him for some long moments, his heart doing odd things and his brain trying to process.

“God _damn_ it.”

He wouldn’t be turning Loki in, and damn him for an idiot. It would just seem rude at this point. With any luck no one else would ever find out about his colossal loss of judgement, but if they did… Well, he would ride it out if the time came. Burn that bridge when he came to it.

For now he concentrated on getting ready for bed himself, while hosting – harboring? – a wanted demi-god.

He stripped out of his suit. He made certain that JARVIS was running all the appropriate security and protocols for their guest – as close to a cell as they would get in his living room. He cleared his schedule for the next morning to prevent anyone walking in and discovering his visitor. He rearranged the sprawling limbs onto the couch because sympathy pain was beginning to bug him – and the same went for the light blanket he tossed over Loki. Bastard could do without a pillow; the armrest was good enough for him. 

With one final check and feeling intensely unbalanced Tony headed to his own bedroom – 

– and was stopped by a grip on his wrist.

He stopped, heart in his mouth, not expecting everything to go to shit quite so quickly – 

And found Loki still beneath his blanket, neat hair now a haphazard mess round his head. He was hardly the picture of a mad god about to rip his head off. 

“… Lokes?”

“I do not wish to be alone.” The words were murmured, so heavy with sleep that any suggestiveness in the phrase was completely lost. His grip tightened slightly. “Do you?”

It really was too ridiculous. He let himself smile, which seemed to relax Loki a bit. “No, I don’t. Let me get another blanket, I’ll be right back.”

Life had certainly gotten strange since Afghanistan. He never would have predicted himself falling asleep sitting up in an armchair, watching over a drunk, villainous god passed out on his couch. 

As Loki’s face softened in sleep and Tony’s vision blurred as unconsciousness approached, he had to admit it was far from the worst thing that had ever happened.

**Author's Note:**

> The next morning Loki woke up disoriented, fairly embarrassed and hungover. He growls something about not telling anyone about this, which Tony gets around later by asking Thor about Loki's (previous) drinking habits. Loki is annoyed.
> 
> Tony's invitation to a drink at his place is eventually taken up.
> 
> And, yes, I _am_ suggesting that Loki has read or watched Superman.
> 
> The word Loki was using was actually _'wyrd,'_ which comes out roughly as 'fate.'


End file.
